Record cold February refilling reservoirs; could bring more lowland snow to Washington

A snowflake lands on Joshua Blau's eye as he tries to catch them in his mouth while heavy snow falls Monday, Feb. 11, 2019, in Seattle.

Elaine Thompson
/ The Associated Press

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With temperatures hovering around freezing in places and the snow level dropping, several parts of Western Washington saw snow flurries Friday morning. How much more snow will fall in the coming days and whether it will stick are highly uncertain, says KNKX weather expert Cliff Mass.

“There’s a lot going on,” he said on Friday morning. “A weather system is now approaching the coast.”

He says that will bring rain with it, probably arriving inland before noon.

“I think the temperatures are going to be too warm this morning for snow getting down to sea level. You could see a few wet flakes sprinkled in there, but no accumulations below 500 feet,” he said.

But he says there will be snow Friday at elevations above 1,000 feet. He predicts at least 6 inches in the mountains.

“Maybe more – good snow in the mountains,” Mass said.

Then he says, as this weather system moves through, the atmosphere will start cooling down. That means it will be cold enough to snow near sea level on Saturday.

"I think it will be quite possible for some people to get a half inch or inch of snow, especially away from Puget Sound," Mass said.

There is a significant chance for a few inches of snow on Sunday and into Monday, and looking beyond that, Mass says the models are showing as much as three or four inches.

"There's a lot of uncertainty. We have to watch this very carefully."

All of this snow, locally and along the west coast, has helped fill snowpack levels and reservoirs.

"The snowpack now in the Northwest is virtually all near normal. A month ago, Oregon was way below normal, but now they're very close to normal," Mass said.

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Temperatures will hover above freezing for the next few days, allowing accumulated snow and slush to slowly melt in western Washington.

KNKX weather expert Cliff Mass says air that’s cold enough to bring more snow will soon be back. It’s still unclear whether that will actually materialize. But either way, Mass is predicting this February will go down as the coldest on record.

Snow flurries started flying into the greater Seattle region Friday morning a little after 7:30, landing on sidewalks and roadways that were finally clear after the big storm that hit the region on Monday.

But those flurries were just “a teaser,” said KNKX weather expert Cliff Mass, not the big event expected later in the day.

An impressive storm was looming offshore Friday morning, promising to bring significant rain and wind to the Puget Sound region. But KNKX weather expert Cliff Mass says it won’t hit too hard and should give way to a relatively quiet weekend, with plenty of breaks to get outside.